Confirmed keynote speakers include Gunnar von Heijne, Philip Greene, Piero Carninci, Takashi Ito, Eric Xing and Zhiping Weng. They will be joined by several prominent invited speakers in special sessions including: computational tools for NGS, cancer informatics, and cloud and work flows for reproducible biology. ISCB is known for hosting a variety of international meetings including ISMB, while BGI of Shenzhen is one of the world's largest sequencing centers. Shenzhen is a booming city with easy access from adjacent Hong Kong and a pleasant climate during December.